how to judge a handmade piece

Markets and shops are full of pieces described as handmade, at prices from eight dollars to eight hundred. Some are thrown by a person; some are poured into moulds by the thousand and signed with a stamp. None of this requires expertise to tell apart. It requires knowing where to look, and the first place is the bottom.

read the foot

Turn the piece over. A wheel-thrown pot shows a trimmed foot ring: subtle spiral tool marks, raw clay, sometimes a maker's stamp pressed while soft. Slip-cast factory ware shows a perfectly uniform, often glazed-all-over base with a moulded recess and, frequently, a seam line running up the sides where mould halves met. The foot is where a maker's hand is most honest, which is why trimming is the skill collectors quietly judge.

• Throwing rings: faint spiral ridges inside the piece are the fingerprint of the wheel. Moulded interiors are dead smooth.
• Weight in the hand: a considered piece weighs what it looks like it should. Beginner or factory work is usually too heavy at the base.
• Glaze that moves: pooling in carved lines, breaking thin over edges, speckle blooming through. Factory glaze is even everywhere, which is its own tell.
• Small asymmetries that repeat nowhere: two handmade mugs from the same maker rhyme; they never match.

quality is not the same as perfection

A wobbled rim can be a flaw or a signature; the difference is intention and consistency. Look at the maker's body of work: if every line is confident and one wobbles charmingly, that wobble was kept on purpose. If everything wobbles apologetically, you are looking at early work priced as mature work. This studio keeps its irregularities deliberately (the maker throws every piece herself, and no two carry the same line), and prices them as finished decisions, because they are.

the questions a good maker loves answering

• What clay is this, and what cone was it fired to? (Vitrified stoneware or porcelain for daily tableware; see clay bodies.)
• Is the glaze food safe, including this interior? (A confident yes, not a shrug; details in food safe ceramics.)
• Is it dishwasher and microwave safe? (Honest makers say exactly what they trust and why.)
• Was this thrown, hand built, or cast? (Casting is a legitimate craft; it should just be named, not disguised.)

signatures, stamps, and provenance

A stamp or signature adds nothing to how a mug holds coffee and everything to what the piece is. Provenance is the story you are buying: who, where, when, what firing. It is also most of the resale story if you ever collect seriously. Any maker proud of the work makes provenance easy to find; ours ships with photographs of the piece being made, because we think the story belongs to the buyer.